**Source: PSS vol. 44**

victory has been won, moreover, with a necessary and lawful breathing-space in those cases where forces, even after their maximum possible exertion, prove insufficient for the revolutionary accomplishment of one or another transition. Victory provides such a "reserve of forces" that we have the means to hold out even in forced retreat—to hold out both in the material and in the moral sense. To hold out in the material sense means to preserve sufficient superiority of forces so that the enemy cannot smash us completely. To hold out in the moral sense means not to allow ourselves to be demoralised, disorganised, to preserve a sober assessment of the situation, to preserve courage and firmness of spirit, to retreat even far back, but in measure, to retreat in such a way as to halt the retreat in time and again transition to the offensive.

We have retreated toward state capitalism. But we have retreated in measure. We are now retreating toward state regulation of trade. But we shall retreat in measure. There are already signs that the end of this retreat appears in sight, that in the not-too-distant future there appears the possibility of halting this retreat. The more consciously, the more unitedly, the fewer the prejudices with which we execute this necessary retreat, the sooner we shall be able to halt it, the more durable, rapid, and broad will then be our victorious advance forward.

November 5, 1921
*Pravda* No. 251, November 6-7, 1921
Signature: N. Lenin

Printed according to the text of *Pravda*

230

## DRAFT DECREES OF THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE'S COMMISSARS ON THE FINANCIAL PLAN AND THE EMISSION PLAN FOR 1922

1

1) Charge the Financial Commission to present by Tuesday, November 15, a calculation in gold roubles, combining all and every type of revenue, including the food tax, fuel, and so forth and so on,
— present a calculation in gold roubles of how the expenditure budget is distributed among the People's Commissariats (absolute figures) — in comparison with analogous pre-war figures (average for 5 or for 10 years) and with approximate figures for 1919 and 1920.

2) Present 2 variants: 240 and 300 million roubles in gold as the size of emission.

3) Correlate the distribution of shares of the overall budget (both material and monetary) with the distribution of rations according to the food supply plan of the Council of Labor and Defence.

4) Begin the elaboration of the budget on the basis of this plan (with the variant of 240 million roubles in gold of emission) immediately.

5) Assignment to Gosplan? The Central Statistical Administration? or an expanded commission?

6) Deadline — December 20.

7) Is it not possible to publish a series of the Financial Commission's grounds? in particular the calculation (in goods) of the pre-war rouble, and so forth?

Written November 5, 1921
First published in 1959
in Lenin Collection XXXVI

Printed according to the manuscript